AIMP (Artem Izmaylov Media Player) is a freeware audio player for Windows. It was written by Russian developer Artem Izmaylov, and is now being developed by the AIMP development team.[1] It is aimed at being a lightweight, responsive audio player. It had been based on the BASS[3] audio library but since beta version 3.00, it has its own audio engine.

Artem Izmaylov released the first version of AIMP with the name "AIMP Classic" on August 8, 2006.

In version 3, AIMP got its own audio engine, and full support for ReplayGain was added. Also, the music library interface was revamped, with new transparency effects.

Official site news entry denies the connection between AIMP development team and the donations being collected by aimp2.us website, and calls the latter a fake.[4]

AIMP supports the DirectSound, ASIO and WASAPI audio interfaces, and it uses 32-bit audio processing for its 18-band equalizer and built-in sound effects (Reverb, Flanger, Chorus, Pitch, Tempo, Echo, Speed, Bass, Enhancer, Voice Remover). It has an Internet radio browser, and can play from Icecast or custom radio stations. It also has the ability to record Internet radio to WAV, Vorbis, AAC or MP3.

What makes AIMP unique is, among other features, its ability to load the entire media file, which is currently being played back, into the RAM of the computer (currently the options allow for media files of a size of up to 250MB to be loaded into RAM automatically at the start of playback; the file is subsequently deleted from RAM again, once playback has finished). The advantages are obvious: Once the file resides in RAM entirely, seamless playback without any interruptions is almost guaranteed, even on slower, older machines, and even under heavy multi-tasking with demanding programs, which may read or write continuously to and from the drives of the computer. Other common players such as Winamp read the media files in tiny bits, just in time for playback, and they sadly lack this simple, but hugely effective, feature of loading media files into RAM. This feature also prevents any interruptions during playback and thereby saves the loudspeakers and the human ears the ugly and dangerous clicking noises, when such an interruption occurs. In times of ever increasing RAM capacities in even the most basic consumer PCs, there is no negative tradeoff in loading the typically smallish audio files into RAM, either.